Perhaps you're the type who could sell a melting chocolate
ice cream cone to a woman in white. Or maybe you don't know a
sale from a used Chevy pickup. Whatever your sales smarts, experts
agree that true selling power derives from your ability to read
people.

If you can read your clients--judge their next move, evaluate
their body language and conversational behaviors, and respond to
their questions in a way that will leave them longing to know
more--you're well on your way to nabbing that sale.

Don't know where to start? Don't worry. That's where
Jo-Ellan Dimitrius' Reading People: How We Reveal Ourselves
in Everyday Situations and How to Work It to Your Advantage
(Random House) comes in. Her advice? Connect with your clients.
"Connecting doesn't have to mean a 10-minute
discussion," writes Dimitrius, a jury consultant who has
helped select jurors for 600-plus trials, including the O.J.
Simpson and Rodney King cases. "It can mean simply looking
someone in the eye, smiling and commenting on the weather. These
brief sparks of contact aren't superficial; they're
sociable, and they're where trust and communication--and
people-reading--begin."

That trust is vital to your business; without it, clients
won't feel comfortable--and not a people-reading guru in the
world could help you make those sales.

Indeed, people-reading skills are crucial for entrepreneurs,
notes Fritz Russ, dean of the College of Business Administration at
the University of Cincinnati. "Because entrepreneurs are
selling all the time," he says, "they're on the spot
to always understand whether their message is being received and
what kind of message they're getting from their
audience."

Add to that the need to read entire committees or groups of
investors, and you've got a lot of homework to do in the
people-reading department.

So get reading already.

First Impressions

Package your product with style.

It doesn't matter if you're clinging to a pair of
acid-washed jeans or some punk-rock-pink fishnet stockings. OK, it
might matter. But what matters more is whether you're keeping a
watchful eye on the type of packaging that's wrapped around
your precious product--assuming, of course, you'd like to move
that product out the door.

"Think of packaging as fashion," says Leslie Evans,
founder of LEDA (Leslie Evans Design Associates) in Portland,
Maine. "A lot of the packaging now picks up on the color
trends and patterns for the particular year [the product was
released]. Your packaging has to be hip to what's happening in
retail."

For one fall package design, for instance, Evans included plaids
and darker colors appropriate to the season.

The key is to make the package so appealing that consumers
won't care what they're buying, as long as they get to keep
a cool box or bag. "A lot of the products out there are the
same," Evans notes. "It's just the way you package it
that draws someone to buy that brand."

Don't get too crazy, though. "Avoid anything that will
be outdated in six months," cautions Evans. "Be slightly
conservative, and stick to classic designs with a little
twist."

However you package your product, make sure you're
consistent so you'll build brand loyalty. That doesn't mean
you have to be boring; be as creative as you like--just make sure
you stay true to your vision for your brand. Hopefully, that vision
doesn't have anything to do with leg-warmers.

Flash!

What's in a name? Everything. Unless you're a
bigwig like AT&T or IBM, consumers are 30 percent less likely
to remember initials than names . . .

Point and clip: These days, coupon-clipping doesn't
necessarily mean getting out a pair of scissors. While most
consumers still like paper coupons, e-coupons are becoming quite
the rage, too.